Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, in 1941. She was born into a family of miners and railroad workers. Her father was a miner but what made him different from the rest was that he earned a degree. Ehrenreich is an award-winning author. Ehrenreich has writen books like Nickel and Dimed ''and ''Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm Life Growing up Ehrenreich moved around to many places, she started in Montana then to Pensylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and ended up in Los Angelas for a while. By the time she was a teenager her parents could afford for her to go to college. Ehrenreich attended Reed College in Oregon. Ehrenreich changed her College majors many times. She started off majoring in chemistry and a few years later decided to go into physics. She attended grad school at Rockfeller University. Her focus was theoretical physics but decided that she was not prepared enough for physics and decided to go into molecular biology and later cell biology.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm Ehrenreich has been married and divorced twice. She has two children Rosa and Benjamin the first born was Rosa and she was born in 1970 and Benjamin was born in 1972. Both children have followed in their mothers footsteps and have become writers.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm In one of her essays "Owning Up to Abortion" Ehrenreich has admitted to having had two abortions. She says that abortion is legal and women do have the right to do it, but this subject isn't talked about much and the women who do abortions are looked down upon in many cases. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/opinion/owning-up-to-abortion.htmlAround the release of her book Nickel and Dimed Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm Now at the age of 71 she currently resides in Florida.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DemocraticLeft/message/11149 Career After earning a PhD in cell biology Ehrenreich became an activist. She does not think that she was suited for research because "I'm to impatient and, well sloppy" she says. Ehrenreich first joined a small nonprofit in New York City that worked to try and get better health care for the poor in the city. While in this nonprofit she found she was doing investigative stories and enjoyed it.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm At this point she did not have a plan to become a writer but she was doing it. Ehrenreich became a feminist when her daughter was born. She gave birth in a public clinic in New York where she was the only white patient there at the time. The doctors induced her labor because it was late in the evening and they wanted to go home.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DemocraticLeft/message/11149 A few years later she made the decision to quit her co-teaching job at the State University of NY.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm Ehrenreich got her big break when she wrote a story for Ms. magazine about the myth that feminsim causes heart disease. The story became a cover story and she was asked to write more. The writings supplied Ehrenreich with some reliable income. Around 1998, Ehrenreich steadily went toward writing books from essay writing. She is also well known for her book reviews which have appeared in The New York TImes Book Review, The Washington Post and many others. Throughout Ehrenreich's life she has been an advisor, board member or founder to many organizations including the U.S National Women's Health Network, Democratic Socialists of America,and others. http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01203In 2006, Ehrenreich founded an organization called United Professionals. The United Professionals are a non-profit organization that reaches out to all unemployed and underemployed. This organization helps men and women who have college degrees but they aren't really considered middle class because either they can't get a job or they can't earn a well paying job. http://justthinking.typepad.com/nordenson/2006/09/barbara_ehrenre.html Throughout her career Ehrenreich has received many awards. Some of these include the "Humanist of the Year" award,http://www.americanhumanist.org/AHA/Humanists_of_the_Year "Freedom from Want" medal, and the Ford Foundation award.http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/ehrenreich-bio.html Writing Nickel and Dimed ''is a New York Times best seller. This book is about Ehrenreichs experiences in low paying jobs. Ehreneich who has a PhD in cell biology went undercover and worked in very low paying jobs like being a waitress, hotel-maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide and wal-mart salesperson. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DemocraticLeft/message/11149She said that one job is not enough a person needs at least two if they want to live indoors. Ehrenreich got the idea for the book while having an espensive lunch with Lewis Lapham an editor of ''Harper's. Ehrenreich learned that she wouldn't understand how it truly feels to be impoverished because before doing the experiment she had some rules. One rule was that she would never go hungry. Another rule that she made was that she would use her car. She says she was already better off than many others because she could speak English and already had a car. http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Nickel_And_Dimed/Nickel_And_Dimed04.htmlThe goal of Ehrenreichs experiment was to see if her income could match her expenses.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/nickelanddimed.htm Another one of Ehrenreichs well known books is Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. This book is about people who have done everything right. These people have college degrees and have built up very impressive resumes but they still are prone to financial disasters. Ehrenreich again goes undercover this time with a good looking resume and tries to land a middle-class job. She ends up getting rejected at every job that she applied for.http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/baitandswitch.htm Some books that were written by Ehrenreich are:http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/books.htm *''Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America'' *''The Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation'' *''Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy'' *''Balt and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream'' *''Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America'' *''Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War'' References